Recently, an enhanced interest has been paid to the transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy for treating neurological patients for which drug treatments are not necessarily effective. The transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy is relatively a newly developed one which is effective in decreasing therapeutic stress of patients and/or symptoms by providing specific portions of brain such as cranial nerve with magnetic stimulation generated by the magnetic field generator positioned on the scalp of the patient.
Contrary to the conventional electric stimulation method which needs craniotomy procedure and uses indwelling electrodes which might be extremely uncomfortable to the patients, the transcranial magnetic stimulation is non-invasive and less stress and therefore is expected to be widely used.
Patent Literature 1 discloses a specific transcranial magnetic stimulation method for applying electric current to a coil mounted on or above the scalp of patient to generate local weak magnetic pulses, causing intracranial eddy current by electromagnetic induction to apply magnetic stimulation against the nerve cells in brain underneath the coil.
Patent Literature 1 also discloses that the transcranial magnetic stimulation method effectively relieves an intractable neuropathic pain and a suitable positioning of the local stimulation results in an increased pain-relief effect. It also discloses that the most effective stimulation point slightly varies from person to person.
This means that, an achievement of an increased therapy effect highly depends on how the optimum stimulation site is identified for each patient's head, i.e., how a precise positioning of the stimulation coil is attained on the patient's head. It is also known that the therapy effect can vary according to the orientation (posture) of the stimulation coil even if it is positioned at the same place.
Patent Literatures 2 and 3 disclose techniques for positioning the stimulation coils against the patient heads by using, for example, an optical tracking system using ultra infrared ray. This technology has been commercially available and also used in clinical applications. Patent Literature 4 discloses another apparatus for positioning the stimulation coil against the patient heads by using a multi jointed robot.
Patent Literature 1 further discloses that the effect of the transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy persists for about several hours and does not last up to several days. This means that, to attain an increased pain reduction effect, the transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy is desired to be applied regularly at smaller intervals, preferably every day, in order to reduce pain. Also, preferably the patient can take that therapy at the his or her home or in the neighborhood clinic in which his or her regular doctor is working with minimum physical and/or economical load.